Hacksaw
Once a tribal warrior, Hacksaw supported the rise of the Butcher, a move that saw him in turn elevated to become her right hand. Following her death, he would become one of the Warlords of Detroit. However, his own reign would prove to be ultimately short-lived. History Hacksaw was born into the Dry Hills tribe, one of the numerous, now-extinct Tribal groups that formerly welled in the Michigan wilderness. From a young age he expressed dissatisfaction with the tribe’s traditions and strictures, feeling that they were intentionally hobbling themselves out of fear. Many of their traditions were concerned with the Great Burning (their name for the Great War) and avoiding any connection to the old world for fear of repeating its fall. The so-called Withering of 2170 would prove to be his defining moment. A combination of drought and disease had devastated food supplies across the region, leaving the Dry Hills on the verge of starvation. A group within the tribe had advocated attacking others to steal their food and take their lands, in essence ensuring the Dry Hills’ survival at the cost of others. Hacksaw joined this movement, throwing his support behind the woman who became its leader. After challenging and killing Red Hat, the tribe’s leader, the woman took command of the tribe. She renamed herself as the Butcher, and immediately drove her tribe to war with their neighbours. As one of her key supporters, Hacksaw was elevated to her right hand, serving as her second in the battles to come. His aid would prove invaluable to the conquest of the neighbouring Black Water tribe, while also ensuring his position. For the next two years, he would support the Butcher in her war of conquest across the Michigan region. He would take part in the subjugation and effective destruction of numerous tribes, aiding in both the planning and execution of their assaults. His loyalty to the Butcher would be unquestioned, even if he did not agree with all of her choices. Key among them would be the elevation of Two-Suns, a warrior from a conquered tribe. A capable warrior who had survived the Butcher’s assault, he had pledged himself to her cause and quickly risen through the ranks due to his combination of skill and charisma. Hacksaw didn’t like him, simply because he saw the warrior as being an outsider and felt that elevating somebody who was not from the Dry Hills was a mistake. None the less, he supported the Butcher’s decision, but made his dislike of Two-Suns clear. Hacksaw immediately supported the Butcher when she announced her intention to conquer the Detroit Wasteland. This decision came out of not only his loyalty to her, but also his desire to be a part of something greater. While he had revelled in their conquests so far, Hacksaw knew that they were nothing compared to the glories of the old world and the wonders it had contained. He saw in the Detroit Wasteland a chance to achieve some of that wealth and power, building his own version of what had been lost in the Great Burning. In many ways, this desire was also reactionary; a final rejection of all that the Dry Hills had held as taboo. In 2177, the Butcher’s army entered the Detroit Wasteland. Almost immediately, they made contact with the inhabitants, in the form of raiders and scavengers. The latter group proved to be almost immaterial to their plans; more prone to running than fighting, the few they met gave the impression that they were no real threat. The raiders proved to be another matter; many of them proved to be violent and dangerous, willing to fight to the death to protect their meagre holdings and possessions. The Butcher found them to be something of a concern. They could not be ignored, but conquering them would take time and cost lives that would be better spent on their actual targets. The discovery of a second would-be conqueror, Preah Khan, also gave her pause as she saw conflict between their armies as being inevitable. Her two lieutenants offered their own suggestions as to what to do next. Hacksaw advocated wiping out the local raiders with the idea that the rest would be cowed. Conversely, Two-Suns suggested absorbing raider bands into their ranks, seeking to bolster their numbers while also profiting from their knowledge of the Detroit Wasteland and its peoples. To Hacksaw’s dismay, the Butcher supported Two-Suns’ idea. Her forces quickly secured the services of two prominent raider leaders, Black Alice and Durham Red, as well as their respective bands. While their loyalty had been ensured through threats and they had been put under Two-Suns’ command, Hacksaw saw the pair of them as being a threat. They were outsiders, they had no personal loyalty to the Butcher, and they were in turn being lead by a man that he already disliked. None the less, he worked with them, feeling that he could tolerate their presence for as long as they were useful to his warlord’s cause. Having expanded her army, the Butcher’s next move was to destroy her rival. She saw Preah Khan’s army as being a threat, especially as the other Warlord was moving to conquer Chryslus Castle, a settlement that she had set her own eyes on. The information provided by her two raider vassals allowed her to formulate a plan to defeat Preah Khan, one that would rely considerably on their knowledge of the local terrain. While Hacksaw didn’t like the idea of relying on them, he none the less supported the plan. Under the plan, the Butcher split her forces into two groups, smashing into the rearguard of Preah Khan’s formations. The northern attack, lead by the Butcher herself and backed by Hacksaw, cleanly sliced through Preah Khan’s detachment, cutting off a good sized body of his troops from the rest of the army. Those forces were mercilessly hunted down, exterminated to a man by their attackers. The rest of Preah Khan’s northern front chose to pull back, their leader realising just what he was up against and the severity of the situation. The southern approach, lead by Black Alice and Durahm Red, fared well, even if they were not as crushingly successful. Rather then cutting off and encircling a portion of Preah Khan’s troops, they simply forced them back. The two former raider leaders used their superior knowledge of the city to confound their opponents and hamper their ability to respond, keeping them on the back foot. Leapfrogging through ruined buildings, they pushed Preah Khan’s forces back from around Chryslus Castle. Category:Raiders Category:Deceased